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A market survey from IDC, on behalf of Corporate Linux distributor Novell, says that in the face of a worldwide recession, businesses seeking cost reductions are making the jump to Linux.
Novell: IT turning to Linux during recession.(IMG:Linux)
The study surveyed more than 300 senior IT executives spanning manufacturing, financial services, and retail industries across the globe, as well as government agencies.
According to the results, the number one motivation executives gave for migrating to Linux was economic and related to lowering ongoing support costs. More than 40 percent said they plan to deploy additional workloads on Linux over the next 12-24 months and 49 percent indicated Linux will be their primary server platform within five years.
When it comes to what they are looking for in an operating system, 67 percent stated that interoperability and manageability between Linux and Windows is one of the most important factors. Novell said the retail industry showed the greatest potential for acceleration in Linux adoption, with 63 percent wanting to make the switch or add Linux into the network. Moreover, 69 percent of retail businesses are considering the same on the server.
Nearly half of all respondents stated that moving to virtualization is accelerating their adoption of Linux, while 88 percent of recipients plan to evaluate, deploy, or increase their use of virtualization software within Linux operating systems over the next 12-24 months.
“Economic downturns have the tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions and punish solutions that are not cost competitive,” said Al Gillen, program vice president of system software at IDC. “This survey confirms that Linux users view it favorably, and this view places Linux in a competitive position to emerge from this downturn as a stronger solution.”
The economic crisis has had the biggest effect on the Americas, and across financial services and government. More than 62 percent of respondents said their budget has been cut, or that they are only investing where absolutely necessary.
If you could get your company to move, would you adopt Linux in the enterprise sector? Do you already use it?
Let us know in the comments.
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